CHAPTER 35: LIVE THREAT

"Cell A," Liora’s voice came through the tube, lower now. "We have a real incursion on Gate Six’s outer landing. Wardline failure. You will hold at the jamb and follow my instructions only. Repeat."

"Hold at the jamb," Cael said. "Follow you only."

"Good," she said. "Dorian?"

"Cell B is three turns back," Dorian’s voice answered from another tube, quiet and precise. "They will hold."

"Armand," Liora said, "report leash."

"Two threads clean," I said. "Marrow in Shade, Hollow perched. No fuzz."

"Keep them there. Do not present silhouettes. No heroics."

"Understood."

The noise beyond the gate resolved into steps—heavy, irregular, like an animal that had learned to enjoy stairs. Steel hissed somewhere outside. A warden muttered a prayer they weren’t supposed to say out loud on duty.

"Identify," Cael said.

"Leaper," Liora answered. "Forest strain. How it got here is a conversation for later. Think long limbs, too many joints, no love for corners. It likes necks and ceilings."

"Steel?" I asked.

"It respects point more than edge," she said. "Armand, you will not bind it. You will not attempt to bind it. Understand me."

"Understood," I said. Human remains are illegal. Monsters that used to be people fall uncomfortably close to that rule.

"Saint," Pierce’s voice intruded, thin with distance. "Ward team is two minutes out. Your job is two minutes."

"Copy," Liora said. Then to us: "You will step into the landing together, present to the center, and make it choose between you and a wall. Armand, you keep eyes, hands, and leash. Cael, you own the floor."

"Ready," Cael said.

"Ready," I said.

The gate teeth juddered. A gap opened a hand-span, then half a step. Cold air slid in. The smell wore old leaves and wet dog and wrong.

"Go," Liora said.

We went.

The landing beyond was a low rectangle with three pillars, a drain, and the main gate arch ahead. The white wardline that should have painted the threshold was a crack down the middle like a smile that had given up. Two wardens stood at the far left with leveled spears. Between us and them, the leaper crouched on the wall near the ceiling like something that had failed at being a person and decided to be a spider instead. Long arms. Knees that bent enthusiastically in the wrong direction. Black eyes like wet stones. It turned its head and saw two new shapes to enjoy.

"Center," Cael said.

We moved into the box’s middle. Anchor Step gave my heel honesty. Aura made his stance heavy without shouting. I didn’t let my killing intent bloom; this wasn’t a sunny square with Saints ready to grab my collar. The dark doesn’t clap for your presence. It counts the holes you leave.

The leaper flexed. Its belly bunched. It went for high ground—our faces.

"Up," I said.

Cael didn’t wait for physics. He stepped in under where the leaper would be, then drove up through his legs as it landed, shoulder like a rising wedge. The thing skittered off the angle and hit a pillar. I put the point where a hinge of bone moved wrong. Not a kill. A convincer. The point bit, the ward along my blade flared to warn me what I already knew: nonlethal only. Fine. I turned the wrist and slid the point free without dragging.

It reoriented mid-air and shot for my throat. I dropped—not back, down—and the teeth scissored a thumb above my collar. Point up. I touched where its wrist joined elbow. Ward chime. It doesn’t like pain, I thought. Good. Most things don’t.

"Left," Cael said. He was already there. He took its rebound with a low hip, guided—not thrown—into the center again. We were writing its options.

"Marrow—stay," I breathed. "Hollow—tap." The bird clicked on the ceiling, not at the thing—at the loose bolt I’d noticed in the gate track. The leaper’s path went under it next jump. I made a choice.

"Liora," I said.

"Say it," she answered.

"Bolt in the track. If I pull, we drop teeth two inches. It’ll startle, not kill."

"Do it," she said instantly.

Cael glanced once but trusted the answer. When the leaper launched for the wardens, I reached up, found the loose bolt, and took its weight into my hand. Anchor pulse only when iron shifted. The tooth dropped a finger-width and sang. Not much. Enough. The leaper flinched—animals always respect teeth. It twisted to avoid the imaginary bite and slammed the pillar shoulder-first instead of a warden’s face.

Cael was already stepping in. He didn’t hit it. He made the floor heavy under it. Aura down through bone into stone. The thing found gravity in a hurry and stayed there for a breath it hadn’t planned to donate.

"Now," Liora said.

The ward team arrived like a payout: four sigil-hands, two chains, a net with runes that dislike jumping. We kept our box while they cast. The leaper tried to push through us anyway. It found point and weight and a net that decided to be a wall it couldn’t climb.

"Hold," Liora said. "Hold. Good. Down."

The thing hit the deck. Chains kissed wrists and ankles; runes lit like sleepy eyes waking. It went still with the sullen quiet of a dog on a short line.

"Clear," a warden called.

I let my breath out slow. Cael shook his hands once and let them go still. The wardline flickered, licked the threshold, and came back blue-white, embarrassed.

"Cell A," Liora said. "Inside. Now."

We stepped back through the jamb. The gate teeth ground down and sealed. The tubes hissed.

"Report," Pierce said from the other side.

"Cell A: uninjured," Liora answered. "Live threat captured. Wardline failure flagged."

"Logged," Pierce said, already writing it with his jaw. "Scores stand. Night Run complete for Cell A."

Cael looked at me. Not a smile. Approval that didn’t need the work explained.

"Nice call on the bolt," he said.

"Nice floor," I answered.

Liora came to the inner plate, hair pale as the light, eyes calm. "You didn’t chase," she said. "Good. You didn’t narrate. Better."

"I thought real hard about both," I said.

"Thinking is allowed," she said. "Come breathe air that doesn’t chew."

We walked out to a yard that contained people instead of tests. The white under Gate Six was honest again. Dorian stood under an arch like a column you never notice until the roof doesn’t fall.

Across the quad, Seraphine watched, posture perfect, mouth polite. Her eyes flicked to the captured thing and back to me, calculating. Ariadne stood with Marcus, both dusted, both breathing. Elara leaned against a post, wrists wrapped, eyes bright.

"Two minutes thirty-nine," Pierce said, reading the slate. "Acceptable. Cell A, dismissed for debrief after wash. Do not leave campus."

"Something’s off," Cael said under his breath.

"Yes," I said. "Gate Six doesn’t spit leapers."

We both looked at Liora. She watched the ward team drag the thing away and didn’t speak until they were out of earshot.

"This wasn’t part of the practicum," she said. "Do not repeat that in a dining hall. Do not repeat it to friends. You will come to the south infirmary in one hour. You will write what you saw in plain language. You will not theorize. You will not blame. You will not guess at politics. Understood?"

"Understood," we said.

She left without the drama she could have used. Dorian followed, quiet and sharp.

Seraphine began walking toward me, white hair catching lamplight. I could see the shape of the sentence she was going to say: By sunrise, you’ll ask me for help.

I turned away first.

’I’ll ask for help when it saves people,’ I thought. ’Not because I’m afraid of the dark.’